Let There Be Morning
by messtobemade
Summary: "Tell me you don't want this too…" his voice held a certain thickness that was rough with want, "tell me to stop and I will." She didn't. Movieverse, set after Iron Man. M-rated.


**What if Iron Man 2 had started with Jon Favreau's notion of opening it with Tony and Pepper waking up in bed together? This is based on that! This starts directly after the ending of the first movie and goes from there. **

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This has happened to him countless times before: waking up in the early morning hours to find a woman in his bed. Of course he's always the first to wake. His body's clock is always set for him to avoid awkward talk after the sunrise. He is the master escape artist of the morning after. But this time is different. He doesn't leave- not immediately, anyway- because next to him is not just one of those countless, faceless women. No, sleeping peacefully next to him with her face buried in his pillow and her unusually unruly hair spread like a halo around her face is Pepper Potts.

The first thing he remembers is that they weren't drunk. Oddly enough, it's the first thought to come to his mind after the reaction of nonsensical profanity finally clears from his sleep-fogged brain. It's his first thought because in over a decade of working together they've never done _this_ and frankly he's in disbelief that it would happen naturally and not in a dream. They may have tumbled to the sheets in a passion driven haze, but the only thing he remembers being intoxicated by is the smell of her skin so close to him.

Pepper sighs deeply and fidgets for a moment before relaxing back into her slumber. The sheet covering her back shifts with her movement, showing him the silken skin of her back. He suppresses a grin when he sees the freckles adorning her shoulders, as he lets his memory finally catch up with him.

The night had started platonically enough, although it had certainly not been eventless. Wordlessly, Happy drove them back to the mansion from the press conference where Tony had announced he was _Iron Man_. He and Pepper sat in the back seat, he with a smug smile on his face and her with a finger to her temple and jaw clenched. Self-proclaiming himself as some sort of superhero less than twenty minutes before had of course been an impulse, but he hadn't yet brought himself to grasp its enormity. Pepper on the other hand seemed to be getting more irritated by the minute. She hadn't said a word since Tony stepped away from his podium at the press conference and they made a quick getaway from the hoard of reporters throwing question after question at him. A silent Pepper meant she was either thinking deeply about something or she was a catastrophic level of angry. In this case, it was probably both.

He made the mistake of opening his mouth to say something as they walked into his house, but she stopped him before he made a sound.

"I'm not even going to ask why you couldn't follow the prepared statement. What I'm going to do is get acquainted with every form of damage control I know and try to deal with this mess." She shook her head and looked down at the Blackberry in her hand, "hundreds of emails already."

With a sigh she walked away, surely to find a corner to tend to the pile of work quickly building. He stalked off to his workshop to start on repairing the suit and didn't hear a thing from her for some time. A few hours later, as he began some of the more physical and mechanical work on the suit's damaged breast plate, he couldn't ignore the exceeding soreness in his muscles: a side effect of his scuffle with Stane. He decided maybe it was time to call it a night. Glancing at the time and noticing it was well into the night, he assumed Pepper had gone home without saying goodbye. She was not a stranger to late nights at the office-or house in this case- but when it did happen she usually called it quits around midnight.

He knew she had to be pretty frustrated if she skipped their usual formality of saying goodnight. They'd picked up the habit after he had called her late at night a few times to complain about how he needed her for something but she had already left. Save from some nights when he had been… entertaining, they rarely went without a goodbye at the end of the day. Pepper only went straight home without a word if she was feeling just a bit spiteful after he'd inserted his foot in his mouth one too many times. So he resigned himself to end his night alone and made his way from the workshop to his bedroom.

"Jarvis hit the house lights, will you? It's bedtime."

_I have left the first floor office light on, sir. _

"And why would that be?"

_Miss Potts is still on the premises._

"Oh. Tell her it's quitting time and to go home and get some rest." There was a beat of silence.

_She is approaching, sir._

Pepper immediately appeared in the bedroom doorway, looking just slightly less stern than the last time he had seen her but clearly more fatigued.

"Hey." He said lamely, unsure of how to tread the waters. He and Pepper could go toe to toe at any time of the day but if he was being honest with himself, he never really knew how to deal with the awkwardness of having to be apologetic. The reality of his little declaration and their conversation before the conference had settled by then and the guilt had begun to fester.

She raised a brow as if to say "really?" but the corner of her lip tugged into a half smile anyway.

"I'm going to head home for the night, will that be all Mr. Stark?"

He nodded, a smile slowly becoming a grin. "Yes, that will be all, Miss Potts."

As she turned to walk away from him he found himself calling out to her through no accord of his own. She looked at him expectantly and suddenly he was blurting out an apology in a long string of words that he'd forget by the next morning and she wouldn't think coherent in that moment.

"What?" she questioned, stepping into the room to come closer to him.

"I said I'm sorry." He repeated slowly, maybe more to comprehend it himself than for her benefit.

"For what?"

"For that stunt I pulled today." The words came with a nonchalant shrug.

"It was Tony Stark following an impulse." She smiled.

"Be that as it may, I'm sorry it made a mess."

"Dealing with your little impulses is in my employment contract. Literally; I remember because you drafted it yourself."

"If I remember right it actually says 'the employee agrees to be subject to sporadic episodes of questionable and at times illicit behavior'. I had to lock you in, didn't I?"

She laughed that laugh he'd seen from time to time- the one that lights a spark in her eyes- and shook her head.

"I guess it worked 'cause I'm still here."

When he didn't offer a retort, the air seemed to shift and turn serious in a way he couldn't explain if he tried. All he knew was that the look in her eyes reminded him of the way she gazed at him during their stolen moment at his annual benefit.

"I'm sorry about that night too, you know: the night on the roof."

Her face fell in the same way it had when he'd brought up the topic as she was prepping him for the press conference earlier in the day.

"Tony, we talked about this already…" she trailed off and took a step back to put some defensive room between them.

"No we didn't, not really."

"We should leave it where we did."

"_Why should we_?"

She offered no response to that, most likely stunned into a momentary silence by the sudden volume in his voice.

"I would have come back to that rooftop if I could, Pep. You know that."

"Do I?"

"I got turned around… that reporter, the one from the press conference today-"

"You mean the one from Vanity Fair, that same one whose scantily clad ass I had to put on the curb once? That one?"

"It wasn't_ like_ that this time."

"It doesn't matter, Tony. That night was a mistake."

"How do you know that when nothing happened?"

"I need to leave…"

Before she could make a getaway, he quickly grasped her wrist and whipped her around, cornering her with both his hands planted against the wall behind her. She made a squeak of shock but surprisingly no attempt to escape. The gaze she held with him was a new form of captivity; for a fleeting moment he was powerless to her, the icy blue of her eyes freezing him to the spot. Finally able to tear away from them, he stared at her pink lips, parted as her mouth hung slightly agape. In his proximity he could feel the heavy rise and fall of her chest; or perhaps it was own. He wouldn't know because suddenly he was kissing her.

It would have been a lie to say he had never imagined kissing Pepper Pots. Frankly, he always thought it might come with a twinge of awkwardness, given how long their relationship had been purely platonic. But the kiss was anything but awkward. It was familiarity, it was heat, it was a sort of intimacy that didn't set off alarms in his brain telling him to run, but instead set a spark in his blood that made it run impossibly warmer.

Yes, kissing her was not something he wanted to stop doing. And so as lips clung to each other with disparity and his hands rested gently on her hips, his fingers snuck slightly under the hem of her shirt and rubbed soft circles into her abdomen. He instantly felt tiny goose bumps form under his touch and had to hold back an arrogant smirk at the realization of how responsive to him her body was. The groan that came from the depths of his throat was involuntary, but it apparently startled her because she suddenly broke away from him and stepped back to put some defensive distance between them.

"Hey…" he whispered, wanting to feel her lips again. "Stop thinking it through."

"It's my job to over think." She made an attempt to sound firm but her voice was low and wavered in a way he'd never heard come from her before. "It compensates for you never thinking anything through."

He couldn't hold back his grin then and blurted out something cheeky about how she completed him; she of course rolled her eyes, but smiled anyway.

"That night on the roof," he was suddenly serious and she gave him a threatening look as if to tell him not to bring it up again, "I know- but just tell me… what was going through your head that night?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"No, I just wanted…" The words tumbled clumsily off her tongue and trailed away as Tony leaned closer to her once more, unabashedly taking her in and letting his warm breath skim across her delicate neck. He heard his name rush passed her lips in a sigh, making him ache to lean in just a bit further and discover the taste of her skin. In that moment, he couldn't think of anything he wanted more than to just give in to the way he wanted her; so before he could stop himself, his lips were a breath away from hers once more.

"Tell me you don't want this too…" his voice held a certain thickness that was rough with want, "tell me to stop and I will."

She didn't.

Instead, she pulled him in by the nape of his neck and kissed him with fervor so urgent that it took him a second to respond with equal passion. She was suddenly everywhere all at once, and he didn't know whether he should focus on the ravage attack of her lips, the feel of her hand grasping clumsily at his shirt, or the gentle graze of her fingers on his chest in her attempt to get his shirt over his head. When it hit the floor, he gaped at her unabashedly, both in shock and in an effort to find any possible doubt in her eyes. He found no hesitation beyond her hooded lids.

The way they tumbled backward and fell to the soft mattress of his bed was anything but graceful. By then he was midway through kicking his pants from around his ankles as she tossed her expensive heels in a nearby corner. The dress she wore pooled on the floor as soon as he tugged the zipper down. By the time they found the bed, they were both bare. The irony of how eagerly they threw away any long-established platonic pretense was – for the moment – completely lost on them.

"God, Pep…" A heavy breath escaped as he nestled his body over hers and groaned lightly as her thighs gently flanked him. Forcing himself to smooth his brow creased with pent up frustration, he opened his eyes and took in the glorious sight of her: porcelain skin dusted with innumerable freckles. He couldn't help but lean in and kiss them on her collarbone. She had legs for days, lips red with attention, and her chest heaved for air. The need for her, her body, and her being, was all at once overwhelming.

And so as he lays in bed the next morning, glancing at her still sleeping form, he remembers the giggle he heard for the first time as they tumbled backwards onto his bed. He remembers the taste of her skin as he memorized her freckles with his lips. He can still hear the sigh of his name and the way she whispered that she wanted him into his ear. He already misses the feel of her thighs brushing against his hips with every thrust of his body. As he stretches the sleep from his lax muscles, he recalls the way her fingernails trailed down his back and created a slight pain so sweet that he nearly lost all semblance of control. The relaxed and sated look on her face in her slumber is a sharp contrast from the expression she held in the throws of ecstasy; he can't hold back his grin of arrogant accomplishment at the thought.

He suddenly becomes aware of how his body is reacting to his trip down short-term memory lane and he's at a loss. Frankly, he's no stranger to waking up the woman in his bed in the middle of the night to quench his particular hunger. But when the woman next to him is more than just a woman – it's Pepper for God's sake – he takes a rare moment of stopping to think.

Being with Pepper had been a moment of heat, of want, of release of tension and inhibition. But as the sun rises outside the windowed walls of his bedroom, he wonders what the next moment they surrender to each other will be like – or if there will be a next moment at all. In his current state of solitary lust he sure as hell hopes there is.

He doesn't know how long he's been awake, merely contemplating and watching her sleep. He doesn't know when he turned into the type of person who does such a thing. Pepper begins to fidget again, tilting her body and stretching out her arm, as if in search of something. She finds it as her head meets his shoulder and her hand rests on his chest, next to the gentle hum of his arc reactor. Her dreamy smile and sigh allows it to occur to him that she deserves more than a one-night stand with a complimentary sunrise round.

But if he is going to find the control to not wake her and tell her how badly he wants her – again – he needs to summon the strength to leave the enticing warmth of her bare body entwined with his. So he slips out of her semi-embrace, pads away to the en-suite bathroom and turns the faucet in the shower.

"Jarvis, if Pepper wakes up tell her I'll be right out." He doesn't want her to think he stole away to hide: the way she knows he would with any other woman.

His skin is heated but the water is refreshingly cool; though the beating stream against his back does nothing to calm the throb of his pulse. Absentmindedly, his hands begin to wander in an attempt to quell his desire. His mind tantalizes him with images: the sight of her above him with her hips swaying in a delicious rhythm, and the darkened shade of her eyes staring back at him in ardor. He wants her there with him: her water-slickened body flush against his, her pleasured words whispered into the curve between his neck and shoulder as he presses her to the shower wall and thrusts into her.

Before long he's coming off the same high she brought him to mere hours before. As he brings his labored breathing back to a normal pace, he steps from the shower and wraps a towel around his waist. He takes the time to shave, staring back at his own refection in the mirror before him and not feeling the twinge of discontent he's become so accustomed to.

The change in his reflection helps him come to the realization that for the first time in his colored history of falling into bed with women, he suddenly wants the woman to still be there the next morning. He doesn't question it. He doesn't want to. He wants to be next to Pepper when she wakes up, set his palm on the soft curve of her hip and kiss away her sated smile before reminding her how incredible the night before was. He wants her to know that she is more than one in an innumerable list of women, even though he doesn't quite know what makes that so – aside from the extensive amount of time they spend together… and how incredibly sexy he thinks she is. He sees her differently and she should know that.

But when he makes his way back to the bedroom, he finds the bed empty. Jarvis tells him she's gone.

He never considered that maybe she wouldn't want to see him the morning after.

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**Let me know what you think? The next chapter will be along as soon as I can get it up!**


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